Search found 932 matches

by Taphoi
Sun Mar 07, 2021 1:04 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The death of Alexander the Great - poisoning hypothesis
Replies: 6
Views: 7986

Re: The death of Alexander the Great - poisoning hypothesis

At the International Symposium on Disease and the Ancient World - University of Oxford - 23rd September 2017 I gave a presentation on Disease and the Death of Alexander the Great which is downloadable here: https://www.academia.edu/34660177/Disease_and_the_Death_of_Alexander_the_Great_Presentation I...
by Taphoi
Sun Oct 20, 2019 12:19 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444386

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

The mist is beginning to clear. I downloaded my old list of Lunar Eclipses around a decade or so ago. The NASA database is still online here: http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/lunar_eclipses/5MCLE/xLE_2_Five_Millennium_Canon.html But they have moved their Lunar eclipse times back about 5 hours in...
by Taphoi
Sat Oct 19, 2019 10:14 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444386

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

Actually the list of New Moons at http://www.astropixels.com/ephemeris/phasescat/phases-0399.html also gives a New Moon at 21:04UT, Jun 10th 323BC. That would mean that June 10th was 30th Daisios and June 9th was 28th Daisios. That overthrows the accepted dates for Alexander's death as well as my da...
by Taphoi
Sat Oct 19, 2019 8:52 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444386

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

I did a couple of quick calculations and realised that the correction to the calculations of New Moons from NASA’s Lunar eclipses due to the eccentricity of the Lunar orbit (which I mentioned above) could in extreme circumstances be as much as a day (although it would only normally be hours.) Howev...
by Taphoi
Sat Oct 19, 2019 5:52 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444386

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

The question was not "could some Greek astronomers predict the start of the lunar month?" The question, which you still have not answered, is what evidence you have that any Greek calendar before 300 relied on calculating the start of the lunar month, or had ways of compensating for the k...
by Taphoi
Sat Oct 19, 2019 11:10 am
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444386

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

We are still waiting for you to provide a spot of evidence that any Greek calendar before 300 relied on calculating the start of the month or had a way to compensate for the king or archon adding and subtracting months or days to taste. (One date in one [s]historian[/s] biographer and moral philoso...
by Taphoi
Fri Oct 18, 2019 1:25 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444386

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

Your authority is Google? Perhaps a rephrasing of the question. What is the ancient evidence for Eudoxus adopting the constellations of the zodiac from Babylon and subsequently intoducing these same constellations to the Greeks along with the concept of the line the sun traces through same? Beautif...
by Taphoi
Thu Oct 17, 2019 7:17 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444386

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

You claim that Eudoxus introduced Babylonian astronomical information into Greek astronomy "including astrology and probably the zodiac and its twelve divisions and associated constellations". I'm unaware of any evidence that Eudoxus ever visited Babylon or that he introduced Babylonian &...
by Taphoi
Thu Oct 17, 2019 7:12 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444386

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

You are living in a topsy-turvy world where the mechanical and rule-based Babylonian calendar is "subject to the whim of the moon goddess" (totally different from Selene!) because it relied on observing the start of the lunar month, whereas the abundant evidence for Athenians and Macedoni...
by Taphoi
Wed Oct 16, 2019 7:01 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444386

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

Greek astronomers knew a lot about the length of the solar year and the length of the lunar month, but they could not make the king or archon stop messing with the calendar, so its very hard to place a day in any pre-200 Greek calendar (or the pre-45 Roman calendar) into absolute time. I think that...
by Taphoi
Wed Oct 16, 2019 6:40 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444386

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

His Phaenomena , on the constellations and their myths, is the basis for Aratos of Soli's similarly named poem... None of that, though, suggests he introduced "Astrology and probably the zodiac" to the Greek world. So you are suggesting that Eudoxus's myths associated with the constellati...
by Taphoi
Tue Oct 15, 2019 8:34 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444386

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

You mean the Antikythera Mechanism from the 1st or 2nd century BCE? :shock: After Greek natural philosophers had gobbled down all that Babylonian data... It has been suggested that the Antikythera Mechanism had some Babylonian influence, but only because it has the 223 month Saros cycle of Lunar be...
by Taphoi
Tue Oct 15, 2019 8:04 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444386

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

We can also mention the lion hunt on the façade of tomb II at Aegae, commissioned by Alexander and the sculpture of a youthful Alexander below. There are others. Alex Lion Scalp Athens.jpg Eudoxus of Cnidus is a good example of a Greek astronomer in the first half of the 4th century BC. He visited E...
by Taphoi
Tue Oct 15, 2019 1:09 am
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444386

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

You mean the Antikythera Mechanism from the 1st or 2nd century BCE? :shock: After Greek natural philosophers had gobbled down all that Babylonian data and after even the Athenians had introduced a rational 'by the gods' calendar along side the arbitrary archon calendar to stop the king or archon ad...
by Taphoi
Mon Oct 14, 2019 8:43 pm
Forum: Discuss Alexander the Great
Topic: The Date of Alexander's Birth
Replies: 55
Views: 444386

Re: The Date of Alexander's Birth

The same article, by the way, has an example of Alexander taking time during the siege of Tyre when you would think he had better things to do to add some intercalendary days. I think that Depuydt in his struggles to make sense of what the Greeks did is missing the fact that their astronomy was so ...